Two Kinds of Dining Rooms



This is my Brandy Alexander from the Lex last night. We have a tradition of going there every opening night at SPA, with Beatrix's friend F and her family (F's mom and I have been friends since before F and B were even conceived.) I don't know that I have ever mentioned how much that family — or this tradition — means to me. When we walked in last night, the host was like "Oh yes, you're back!" and they took amazing care of us, and put us in the corner table where we always sit, and treated us like rockstars. Beatrix has leftover chocolate cake for breakfast. This all makes me so happy!


When our server, Sage, found out the show was called The Dining Room, she said "Welcome to MY dining room!"

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I want you to really understand how important this show is to Beatrix.

In September, just a short time after school started, her beloved theater teacher Seves had a massive stroke and has been on medical leave, slowly recovering, since then. Seves has been at SPA for 29 years. His care and guidance, of that program and the students, is incredible, and he means so much to those kids. Here's a link to an image of him when he just started out (because I am too cheap to buy the picture):

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/st-paul-mn-1-5-2004-st-paul-academy-drama-teacher-eric-news-photo/1155635987

Seves' medical emergency threw everything into a tizzy. For awhile, there appeared to be uncertainty about whether they would do the show at all (I snarkily remarked that the school would never have posited "What if there was no soccer season? Or chemistry classes?"). But the truth is that there had been no reason to build redundancy into the department, so there was a lot of work to do. The seniors in particular were felled by having their year — and all they had dreamt of for the fall play — start in such disruption. The principal picked a new play (no one could face doing the one Seves had hand-picked for the fall, the Churchill translation of A Dream Play) — and I don't think I know anyone who really *likes* The Dining Room as a play. The longstanding assistant director and the middle school principal (who has a theater background) cast it, and the school quickly interviewed for a replacement — but even with that, the rehearsal process started a few weeks later than normal, compressing rehearsal time. They achieved a major win in that local director Jon Ferguson, who also has a child at SPA, was available. I've known Jon for a long time, and he is one of the best directors I know. He's amazing. I felt about 1000% lighter when he was chosen.

The kids, especially the seniors, were thrown mightily by all this. Everything they thought they knew about the theater program and how to create a play was tested. They had assignments to do (that did not go over well). Until Thursday, they had not run the show all the way through with tech. Because of the way the show is constructed, it was hart to get a sense of the whole of it. Tech, and especially costumes, came through late. Jon designed it so it was in the round and people were seated on the stage, something new for the school.

And YOU GUYS. The show is absolutely magical. Everyone was great, but especially to see these seniors, who I know so well, build these incredibly complex characters from vignettes, was mind-blowing. Beatrix's friend has an amazing scene near the end that totally had me in tears, and the waterworks continued as Beatrix gave the final monologue of the show and she was So Damn Good.

This is 100% an example of something amazing coming from adversity and absolutely everyone involved rising not just to it, but above it. There's one more performance, tonight at 7:00. It's free. You should go.

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